My new variety of lily plant originated as a seedling selected from a group of seedlings planted by me at Sandy, Oreg., and resulting from my using a very short, cream flowered clonal selection from the `Pastel Hybrids` strain as the seed parent and, as the pollen parent, a red-orange flowered seedling from `Connecticut Lemonglow`.times.`Red Carpet`. The object of this crossing was the production of lilies in shades of orange and red well suited to forcing for pot plant production out of season; and this particular seedling was selected by me for propagation because it appeared to possess characteristics of the kind that I was seeking such as medium size, vivid orange-red coloration and minimum spotting, a color pattern unique in this type Asiatic lily. This selected plant was asexually reproduced by me at Sandy, Oreg., with results so pleasing that propagation was continued under my direction through several successive generations by bulb scale propagation and natural propagation from bulblets. This work demonstrated clearly that the novel and desirable characteristics of this plant would hold true from generation to generation and appeared to be firmly fixed.
It was found that the stature of this new variety remained short and is not overly susceptible to bud abortion when forced into flower out of season as a pot plant and, in addition, it was found that the clone possesses to a high degree the desirable characteristics of hybrid vigor, great hardiness and disease resistance, as well as being a vigorous and good grower and propagator.
It was also found that this new plant is well suited to forcing out of season when the bulbs are dug at the appropriate time and properly precooled; October-dug bulbs, properly precooled and potted in January, will flower under glass in western Oregon, with no supplementary lighting and at moderate greenhouse temperatures, in an average of 60 to 70 days.